Heathrow limited: London airport imposes passenger limit
Heathrow is London's main airport and every day finds itself having to handle passenger traffic at [...]
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Heathrow is London's main airport and every day finds itself having to deal with passenger traffic that is nothing short of incredible. This is certainly nothing new, considering how it is one of the most important in Europe and the world. Under the current conditions, however, the turnout has become unsustainable.
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Indeed, there are not enough ground staff to handle such a flow. For this reason, the responsible management company made a surprising decision: Heathrow will be numbered during the hottest time of the year From the tourist point of view. The number of passengers allowed will be 100 thousand per day.
Heathrow restricts passengers: what changes
For two months, precisely July 12 to September 11, 2022, no more than 100 thousand passengers per day will be allowed to occur at London's Heathrow Airport. Specific requests have been made to the airlines to stop selling additional tickets. A situation that promises to become chaotic to say the least, especially during the first month. The possibility of cancelled flights, in addition to the cuts already made in recent weeks, is not ruled out.
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According to data provided by Airline Data Inc. and published by Corriere della Sera, this operation would result in a net cut of one-fifth of the current ticket supply. A very hard blow for an industry that needs to restart and not run into another stop. However, the lack of staff, at the airport and on board, is the real big obstacle this summer. This is also demonstrated by the maxi strike on Sunday, July 17.
To give our passengers a better, more reliable service this summer and to keep our colleagues safe - we'll be implementing a departing passenger cap of 100k from today to 11 Sept. Read more from our CEO about why we're doing this here: https://t.co/kf3WdJeLbe pic.twitter.com/bJSlf3L95f
- Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) July 12, 2022
Heathrow: official statement
Incredible as it may seem, there is a real tug-of-war going on between the Heathrow Airport management company and many carriers. Suffice it to refer to the words of the London facility's CEO, John Holland-Jaye. Here's what he said, "Some airlines have taken significant action on this issue. Others have not. We believe actions are needed to ensure that passengers have travel that is safe and reliable."
According to the executive's proposed calculations, carriers would be selling 104,000 seats for the summer (per day), or 4,000 more than Heathrow can handle. Of this extra, about 1,500 have already been sold. Therefore, immediate action is needed to prevent the excess from becoming even more dangerous.
Airline Data provides different figures, however. Reasoning about the time span between July 12 and Sept. 11, or the two months of restrictions planned for the London airport, they estimate 7.41 million seats available on outbound flights. On average, it would be just under 120 thousand daily, and considering a fill of 90% or so, 110 thousand passengers are expected each day, far more than the 4 thousand excess indicated.
Why has it come to this situation? It can all be traced back to the damage generated by the pandemic. After the lockdown and restrictions, demand for travel is now gigantic. To cope with the economic losses, however, airlines have laid off hundreds of thousands of people. The upswing in bookings and the huge increase has thus led the entire industry to show unpreparedness.
